n the bed and listen to what I say."

Alice obeyed, and taking her mother's hot hands in hers she waited for
what was to come.

"You have learned to trust God in prosperity, and He will be a
thousandfold nearer to you in adversity. You'll miss me, I know, and be
very lonely without me, but you are young, and life has many charms for
you, besides God will never forget or forsake His covenant children."

Gradually as she talked the wild sobbing ceased, and when the white face
lifted itself from its hiding place there was a look upon it as if the
needed strength had been sought and to some extent imparted.

"My will was made some time ago," Mrs. Johnson continued, "and I need
not tell you that with a few exceptions, such as legacies to Densie
Densmore, and some charitable institutions, you are my sole heir. Mr.
Liston is to be your guardian, and will look after your interests until
you are of age, or longer if you choose. You know that as both your
father and myself were the only children you have no near relatives on
either side--none to whom you can look for protection.

"You will remember having heard me speak occasionally of some friends
now living in Kentucky, a Mrs. Worthington, whose husband was a distant
relative of ours. Ralph Worthington and your father were schoolboys
together, and afterward college companions. Only once did anything come
between them, and that was a young girl, a very young girl, whom both
desired, and whom only one could have."

Alice was interested now, and forgetting in a measure her grief, she
asked quickly: "Did my father love some one else than you?"

"I never knew he did," and a tear rolled down the faded cheek of the
sick woman. "Ralph Worthington was true as steel, and when he found
another preferred to himself, he generously yielded the contest."

"Oh, I shall like Mr. Worthington," Alice exclaimed, a desire rising in
her heart to see the man who had loved and lost her mother.

"He was, at his own request, groomsman at our wedding, and the
bridesmaid became his wife in little less than a year."

"Did he love her?" Alice asked, in some astonishment, and her mother
replied evasively:

"He was kind and affectionate, while she loved him with all a woman's
devotion. I was but sixteen when I became a bride, and several years
elapsed ere God blessed me with a child. Your father was consumptive,
and the chances were that I should early be left a widow. This it was
which led to the